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Friday, September 16, 2016

Things That Make You Go "Hmmm" - Gateway House

Other titles I considered for this post:

What Were They Thinking?

What Were We Thinking?

Oh, I Wish We'd Known

First World Problems of Home Building

In every home building process, or at least the two I've been apart of, there are things that don't go as planned. We already discussed the wrong brick color that was put up around the fireplace that amazingly turned out well. But of course, that was just one of the things that has us occasionally shaking our head. (alright, shaking our head is mild. sometimes I might rant a little... or a lot... or James probably thinks I'm losing my mind)Anyway, why just show you the good, picturesque parts of building a home. I figure some of you might wanna scratch your head right along side me.Let's start with today.

Let's just for a moment ignore the fact that the electricians attached the fan/light remote directly to the light switch cover, thus ensuring there's sticky residue to be removed once I rip it off due to it looking utterly ridiculous, and let's focus on the covers themselves. Picture one and three show us covers with squared edges and a matte finish, while picture two likes to be all showy with it's semi-rounded corners and gloss finish. Every double-gang switch plate in the house is glossy and rounded, while absolutely everything else is squared and matte. This forces me to ask myself three questions. Question One: Does one do this in utter ignorance while doing a job that's mind numbing to the point they don't see what's in front of them?Question Two: Does one do this in the hopes that they can get rid of some undesirable product that is left over while hoping the idiot home owner won't notice?Question Three: Do they realize that if the idiot home owner is in fact, not an idiot, that they are just creating more work for themselves when I make them change them all out at no cost to me?I should add that there are several things on this list of woes that were caused by said electricians, thus adding to my immediate frustration when I find any electrical related issues. As a matter of fact our builder has decided to no longer use this company for his electrical needs. But we got lucky as their last straw before pulling that trigger. (I don't even have pictures of all the crooked outlet covers smattered throughout. But I digress.)

Let's talk light colors, shall we?You may notice a slight difference in the colors of the chandelier bulbs in the above pic, vs the can lights. It's come to my attention in the last few years that there is a huge difference in soft white light, vs cold white light. The two not only look amazingly different, but they clash somewhat fantastically. These facts however, have not yet come to the attention of the electricians.

Another example. Warm white in back, cold white directly in front of it. (Also, please enjoy the stylings of the bathtub being used as a trash can.)

This second bathroom not only highlights that problem, but an even greater one that made the engineer's daughter in me scream like a banshee! Do you see it? The warm white was placed in the center of the room, while the cold light in front of it is OFF TO THE RIGHT! Wanna see it again?

Yep. This light isn't centered on the room or even above the door. Just willy nilly hanging out by it's un-centered self.

And for your viewing pleasure. The outside of the house with it's eye-jarring lighting combo.

Before you ask, most of these things have been fixed already. But it does take me back to those same questions I asked before, and I wonder what ever happened to just doing it right the first time?Ok, so the next few things fall into the category of what were WE thinking, mixed with a big ol' dose of I wish we had known!?

This is a picture of the shake-look shingle siding on one of our neighbors houses. This was what we planned to put around our window bump-outs on the front of the house.

The day I got back into town after our shake-look shingle siding was put up, I told James I didn't really notice the detail of it like the neighbors house. He agreed, and we both chalked it up to the fact that the paint would change everything.

Here's a close up of ours after we added a paint sample. This was the day we went to our builder and asked why ours looked so different from the neighbors, and he kindly informed us that we had a completely different product and what the cost would be to tear ours off and use the more expensive kind we really wanted. This was also the day we decided we could live with it and maybe some year in the future we could make the change.

This next one is probably not gonna turn out to be bad, just one of those things where you shouldn't judge a product when it's only half way done.

Here's a really terrible shot of our island and it's pretty, distressed grey/blue color. We decided to add a bit of color to our locker area, or drop zone, and the island, plus pictures like the one below were my color inspiration.

This is what we currently have. The painter color matched the inside of the island cabinet which has no antiquing. It's not horrible, not great either. It's my job to add the antiquing wax which I know from experience will completely change the look. It of course also needs it's fun hooks and the metal baskets I'm going to add, but for now it's just a bit much. Maybe a little too bright, too blue, too something. What do you guys think?

I've seen countless photos of those two items put together absolutely flawlessly. Ours, hmm, there's some color difference we're dealing with... There's a good chance that once the grout and shelving go in, and depending on the lighting or the time of day... Well, here it is.

Not that I thought the color would match perfectly, but there's a bit more contrast then I'd hoped for. Again I'm probably judging a project that's not even half way completed, but I worry about my choices and getting it right! Only time will tell.I'll leave you with this little nugget that's been hanging out on our "construction site" front porch the last few weeks.

2 comments:

We built two and a half years ago and have been dealing with the work of incompetent sub-contractors ever since. In fact, we have a structural engineer coming over this morning to try to figure out why our basement floor is cracking and sinking (to the point it cracked the granite bar top)